EUNOIA
by yangires
Summary: The world crashes and burns. An anachronistic retelling of a tragedy. (Alternatively, how a very human Kirishima Touka ends up involved with the SS rated ghoul, Centipede.) —AU—
1. present: in media res

author's note;  
01/31/14 — For some reason, I really, really wanted to write something with anachronistic storytelling and a completely AU timeline, so here we go. EUNOIA, an experiment in throwing canon events out the window as I flip the the species of the two main leads around

I had a lot of fun figuring out the plot for this one, so I have y'all have fun piecing the events together as well. Enjoy!

(As a **very important note**: chronological order will be hinted at in the chapter titles. _Past_ for the events of 3 years ago, and _present_ for the events of now.)

* * *

There is fate and there is chance. There is luck and there is destiny.

Sometimes (_all the time_) she wonders what category her life would fall under. Fate, or chance. Luck, or destiny. Simple misfortune—or something that was set in stone long, long ago. Perhaps before _he_ or she were even born. Maybe even before either of them, for all their attempts and all their failures, had a chance to stop it.

She isn't sure. She doesn't know. She will never be certain of it.

But if she is certain of one thing in her life, _then it must be_—

(—_his cheeks are warm against the palms of her hands.  
__He doesn't flinch away.  
__Death surrounds them, and there is nowhere else for them to go._)

"I found you," she whispers, voice hoarse and lovelorn. Her hands are cold and damp, covered in dust and grime and the results of days upon weeks upon months of running away. She's certain he can smell the blood on her broken nails, hear the rhythmic drumming of her heart—but she doesn't care. What's done is done. She is 20-years-old and tired of the hunt.

"You did," he replies, both hands reaching up to grasp her wrists but not quite yanking her arms away. Despite their current predicament, he leans into her touch, indulging in what may or may not be the last moment they will ever have. The blood from her fingers mixes with the blood already streaked across his face, but none of it belongs to him.

"Promise," she begins, "Promise me you won't leave again."

He glances at her. There is little warmth to be found in his one, visible eye.

"I won't," he lies.

She allows herself to believe him.

(Promises can be misleading,  
and those made in vain even more so.)

* * *

She wishes she never met him when she was young and reckless and 17-years-old.

(He isn't the only liar around here.)

* * *

( **EUNOIA** )

* * *

(_ in media res_ )

* * *

This story begins three years ago.


	2. past: rex

author's note;  
02/09/14 — Let it be known: keeping Touka recognizable while still taking into account her lack of ghoul-related trauma is unexpectedly hard. I think I've spent more time hashing out what her human life would be like, instead of, you know, actually plotting. Gosh.

(And in case anyone was wondering, this is mostly going to be a series of connected scenes, drabbles, one-sentence fics and one-shots... much like _between you and i_.)

* * *

( _rex_ )

* * *

Yoriko has spent exactly fifteen minutes examining her face in the bathroom mirror, running a hand through her short blond hair and touching up her make-up for what seems to be the nth time since their arrival at the karaoke place. Her lips are pink and luscious (the result of lip gloss that, apparently, makes your lips _swell up_), her skin is perfectly unblemished, and she is dressed to the nines. For all intents and purposes, she doesn't even know who she's about to go on a date with.

Touka would roll her eyes, if she weren't so busy trying to pick black gunk out of the corners of her eyes. Undoubtedly a result of the sticky, liquid eyeliner Yoriko had insisted she wear today.

"You don't know him," Touka _un_helpfully points, squinting at her own face in the mirror. There is a zit on the right corner of her forehead that was not there yesterday. "He could be _that_ kind of guy, for all you know. Hell — all of them could be."

Yoriko, in turn, huffs, adjusting her hair-band and purposefully fixing the ruffles of her skirt. "Touka-chan, don't say that," she scolds her, "Senpai invited us! And it's not every day we get to meet boys from Kamii..."

Senpai, of course, was a recently graduated upperclassman Yoriko had hit off with fabulously during their first year. Touka had never bothered to learn her name, no matter how many times Yoriko brought her up in conversation—or how many times Touka had actually _spoken_ to her. She had, somehow, inconspicuously hidden this fact by never uttering a sentence that required her to mention their upperclassman's name.

It was genius.

And also utterly stupid.

Maybe if she had made her inability to learn this person's name clear, she wouldn't have been dragged along to a group blind date.

(Not that she would have been able to leave Yoriko alone in a group mostly made up of first year college students, anyway.)

To her relief, Yoriko adds one final stroke of eye-shadow to her eyelids and finally steps away from the mirror. She examines her full ensemble with a critical eye, tapping one foot on the linoleum floor and then giving a little twirl. Almost expectantly, she glances at Touka. "Ready?"

Well, yes. Obviously. She's been ready for the past fifteen—no, eighteen minutes. She refrains from pointing this out as she nods. "Yeah. Ready."

Surprisingly, Yoriko's conversational partner does not turn out to be _that_ kind of guy.

Unsurprisingly, Touka's conversational partner probably _is_.

* * *

**From:** Yoriko (Mobile)  
**To:** Touka (Mobile)  
_Nagachika-san is really funny!  
__What do you think about Kaneki-san?_

**From: **Touka (Mobile)  
**To: **Yoriko (Mobile)  
_No._

* * *

The less said, the better.


	3. present: etcetera

author's note;  
04/03/15 — A very long wait for... a very short update. Oops. Chapters will become longer as I get a more solid idea for the sequence of events, since, unlike my other multi-chaptered fic, I don't have everything meticulously plotted out yet.

I hope you all enjoy this chapter nonetheless.

* * *

Kaneki remains by her side after their little reunion has ended.

She knows it's only a temporary thing, however. He will ditch her without a moment of hesitation as soon as he's sure it's safe to do so. She's sure that he'll disappear from her life once again, as soon as he knows no harm will come to her.

(She would be happy, under any other circumstances.

But these are _not_ any other circumstances.)

"Touka," he quietly says to her, and she sorely feels the absence of the old honorific. "You should go back."

But she's adamant, shaking her head and making an effort to keep her face carefully blank. "No," she replies, voice hoarse. She refuses to cry after today. "Like hell I'm going back to them, so shut up. I'm staying with you."

She thinks he sighs, but she's not too sure. His mask keeps her from seeing anything other than his left eye.

When nighttime approaches, they find a dingy (but miraculously still _standing_) building to spend the night in. A house, she presumes, judging by the structure and some of the utilities that were left behind during the great exodus. Briefly, she wonders if the former occupants had a family to care for; children that would cry and weep as they were suddenly uprooted from their home, forced to go into hiding thanks to another person's ideals.

She dismisses the thought as quickly as it comes. There is no time to think about those things. Surviving in the present is hard enough when she isn't busy worrying about the past.

They huddle together until the wee hours of the morning, wrapped in threadbare blankets scavenged from the surrounding wreckage. She's not really sure if Kaneki actually _sleeps_ during that first night, but when she's jolted awake by the sound of something (or more accurately, some_one_) making a racket outside their makeshift shelter, he's already awake and ready to defend himself if necessary.

* * *

As it turns out, it's_ always_ necessary.

* * *

When the sun rises over the horizon, Touka pushes a stray strand of dirty hair out of her eye. Behind her, she feels Kaneki shifts, undoubtedly adjusting his mask and staring at the corpse at their feet. Touka notes, with mild horror, that she can't even bring herself to be disgusted over the sight of viscera. It's become as common a sight to her these days, as her father's smile used to be three years ago.

"What was his name?" Kaneki asks her, his tone low. She wonders if he regrets all that's happened.

Touka kneels, the heels of her shoes clicking against the cracked concrete floor, and picks up the man's attach case. She once rubbed shoulders with him, but that was ages ago; the body before her might as well belong to a stranger. When she turns around to glance at Kaneki, his kakugan is active.

Two years of training tells her to attack.

She pointedly ignores those two years of training.

"It doesn't matter," she replies. "Let's keep moving."

And despite herself, she's not entirely sure she made the right decision.

* * *

( _etcetera_ )


End file.
